This trailer is a second video developer diary for Elite: Dangerous, Frontier Developments' space shooter revival that's the subject of a current Kickstarter. The clip features David Braben explaining about "The Galaxy and How it Evolves over Time." Thanks Trueman832.

Anyway, so yep, here's exactly what I'm saying. "The Tech is almost done!" and all he can show us is an asteroid field that took an intern two days to make, and some new concept art as his artists churn it out.

Cres is right. Braben has talked about getting a new Elite done for a lot of years now. Every 5 years or so it seems to pop up and nothing ever comes of it except a round of wistful nostalgia. That doesn't exactly inspire the sort of faith required to invest with someone. And yes, whilst most KS' are a 30 day even he's doing 60 - didn't even know that was a allowed - and he's barely squeaked by the half way point at the half way point so far. I'll be surprised if he makes it. And yeah, I'm in agreement with Cres, even if he does get the funding I think it'll be vaporware.

“That's it. You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!”

The Half Elf wrote on Dec 1, 2012, 13:28:Creston please show me where he's been 'doing' this game for the last 20 years?

Are you seriously expecting me to go try to hunt around for news articles from the 90s? Seriously? There have been news updates and snippets and at least one official announcement (IIRC), that "Braben is working on Elite 4." If you don't believe me, fine. :-shrug-: OMG DAVID BRABEN HAS FINALLY ANNOUNCED ELITE 4 FOR THE FIRST TIME!

People (including many on this site) have been begging for a Elite game for a long time. He's making one, he's showing work for it, talking about the project, etc.

I would actually likely quite enjoy another Elite game. I have no faith that Braben is going to get one done. If he DOES get it done, I will gladly admit I was wrong, and I'll gladly pay full price for it IF it's any good. (Let's just say that First Encounters really soured me on the whole "A Game By David Braben!" thing...)

The company may not pump out as many games as other but they have a solid track record.

All I'm saying is that for the rather low amount of games they release, they have a crazy large team. 200 people? Are all these people going to be working on Elite 4? No? Are they going to be working on another game? Their last title got cancelled, and according to the website that shows you the financial status of British companies, their cash flow has gone from 10+ million to a smidge under 2 million pounds (IIRC, without looking it up) in the space of like six months. To me that seems like a company that's about to go belly-up, and is using this KS to try to stay afloat for a few months until they can hopefully secure publisher funding to make something else.

Now, if you feel that everything he's showing is genuine and is legitimately evidence of them working hard on Elite 4, that's fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and seeing as how he's secured 650000 pounds in funding, obviously more people feel that way (though I think most of that funding just comes from people who go OMG ELITE 4 I LOVED ELITE GIVE MONEY GIVE MONEY!!!).

To me it seems like they did a KS to cash in on the hype of KS, and are quickly churning out meager amounts of content to keep the funders marginally happy.

How is this any different from the "Old School RPG" kickstarter? A kickstarter which the large majority of people said "This is BS. They have nothing, they're just trying to grab some cash." It follows basically exactly the same principle.

If Kickstarter was around 20 years ago, how many games do you think we'd have now, compared to how many have been shelved due to no interest from a publisher?

I don't know. Is that relevant? I'm not quite sure what the point behind the question is. Are you saying we should all just throw money at Braben because otherwise Elite 4 would never get made?

Because I will agree with the latter part of that statement. Without KS, Elite 4 will never get made. He's shown that over the past 20 years. I just have no faith that even WITH KS, it'll ever get made.

Finally, he really should lower his entry prices. I gave 20 bucks to Limit Theory, because 20 bucks gets me the game if it ever gets made. And if it doesn't, hey, maybe Parnell's procedural generation thing will show up somewhere else at some point. I'm willing to risk 20 bucks.

Braben is basically asking for 40 bucks just to get the game. Yeah, no. I'm not gambling 40 bucks on a guy who gives off a vibe that he's going to burn through this money and then cancel the project, because he has nothing actually in the pipeline.

Creston please show me where he's been 'doing' this game for the last 20 years? People (including many on this site) have been begging for a Elite game for a long time. He's making one, he's showing work for it, talking about the project, etc.

The company may not pump out as many games as other but they have a solid track record.

If Kickstarter was around 20 years ago, how many games do you think we'd have now, compared to how many have been shelved due to no interest from a publisher?

Using a steering wheel on a Burnout game is like using the Space Shuttle controls to fly a kite.

The Half Elf wrote on Nov 30, 2012, 23:10:How the hell can you give him shit for not giving details when Tim Schafer gave NO details about the sort of game they were making, no concept art, no NOTHING?

It baffled me how many people threw money at Schafer when he had nothing to show. Though I think in his case it was maybe the promise of that documentary more than anything else that got the support rolling. It was the #1 reason why I didn't back him.

Leave the fucking guy alone and let him make the game most of you have been BEGGING for.

I'm sorry, are my posts actively hindering him from making the game or something?

Rigs wrote on Nov 30, 2012, 21:24:I realize some of you guys have a problem with the way Braben might be handling the various updates and details but I can't understand why anyone thinks they shouldn't be doing this game.

He's been "doing" this game for the past twenty years. And he has literally zilch to show for it. Elite 4 makes Duke Nukem Forever seem like a quick, excellently managed project.

Yes, he's asking for support and not giving many in-depth details, especially compared to other projects but there could be multiple legitimate reasons for this. They might not be really far along in the production other than an early alpha and don't want to show something that would give the wrong impression to the players.

They are not in early alpha. They are literally nowhere with this game. Every single thing they've shown has the 'quality' (and I use that term loosely) of something they whipped up in few days since the last update, because those damn people out there need like footage or something before they'll give money!

And not wanting to show something to players is really, really, REALLY the wrong approach to take on Kickstarter. At least, as far as I'm concerned. It seems there are plenty of people who will gladly throw money at David Braben based off of nothing but nostalgia.

Maybe they don't want to give a lot away so it's more of a surprise when it's released.

That's not how games get made. That's not how you secure funding.

Maybe they're waiting until they have most of the features finalized first. Valve doesn't make a peep about most of it's games (nor id) until they're further along in development and not many people seem to have a problem with that. (I understand they're not Kickstarter projects, I'm just saying, 'In general')

Valve isn't asking the community for money to make HL3. id isn't asking the community for money to make Doom 4. Braben is asking for money to make a game that he's been saying he's been making for literally TWENTY YEARS. Elite 4 has been announced to be in development (officially or not) at least half a dozen times in that timespan.

Braben has literally ZERO lines of code to show for all those times that it's been in development. He says they have all the underlying tech ready, but so far they've shown nothing of it, beside an asteroid field that any halfway decent programmer can cook up in a day. Now compare that to what the limit theory guy is showing. (it's awesome that an almost exactly the same type of game is on KS right when Elite is, Braben must hate Parnell something fierce.) If this is all Braben has to show for having worked on Elite 4 for twenty years, then Parnell must have been working on Limit Theory approximately since the Fall of Constantinople.

Possibly Braben's not the talkative kind of person that can show a whole bunch of emotion toward what he's working on. Who knows? I get blamed a lot for not be enthusiastic when working on things but just because I don't show it on the outside doesn't mean I'm not. He could be the same way.

I don't mind that he's a non-emotive, sullen-appearing guy in the videos. (Although I have to ask why he keeps putting himself IN those damn videos? Is he a narcissist or something? If you display no energy, then STOP FUCKING FILMING YOURSELF.) What I mind is that he can't even muster the energy to write a decent update. He's done about 9 updates or so so far, and combined they haven't even been the length of a single Obsidian update. To me it screams that he literally has nothing to say about the game, because he simply no idea what it's going to be or what he really wants to do.

There's just so many reasons for why he's going about the project in this way, I think it's just too early to be criticizing him for the way he goes about explaining things. The project hasn't even begun full production yet so things are probably still in flux. This isn't his first game and he has a track record spanning decades, so like Roberts, I have faith that he knows what the hell he's doing.

Roberts had a fuckload more things to say and show than Braben does, and to say his track record spans decades is a little exaggerated. He's been making games that long, but he really hasn't released all that many of them.

In any case, if people want to spend their money on this, hey, it's a free world. Just don't be surprised when, 12 months from now, he issues a small update that says "Unfortunately the tech isn't working out the way we wanted it to, and we've run out of money. I'm afraid Elite 4 has been cancelled." Because I'm still not entirely convinced this is anything but a "holy shit, people are giving away millions of dollars based on nostalgia, this can pay our bills for a few months!" cash grab.

How is he going to run a 200 man company for a year and a half with 1.5 million bucks?

I really wish, though, that we could round up ALL the different devs in this genre and get them to collaborate on one massive space sim! That would be majorly epic. As far as I'm concerned, the more space-sims in the market, the better!

Having every space dev in the world work on one game would be a major, major clusterfuck. You'd get a game with 90 billion features that has absolutely no coherence. You need one guy with a strong vision, and a good team under him. I don't have any faith that Braben is that guy.

stingray wrote on Dec 1, 2012, 03:28:I wish we could take all the skepticism of all the people in this world and turn it into energy.

Skepticism is what stops people from sending money to people in Nigeria who claim that they've got millions of dollars to give you if you'll just help them get it out of the country. Skepticism is what stops people from buying that bridge the guy is selling. In other words, skepticism is entirely healthy. If this guy can't convince people that his project is legit and has a good chance to be finished (and be good), that's his problem, not the skeptics.

stingray wrote on Dec 1, 2012, 03:28:I wish we could take all the skepticism of all the people in this world and turn it into energy.

It's a known fact of life that all those who didn't believe that something could be done actually motivated those who actually did the thing that couldn't be done by doing absolutely nothing. So, thanks for nothing to all you nonbelievers. You are all part of the process of getting things done. This game will be great!

Yes, well without the dough nothing gets made does it? So converting the non-believers is pretty important, no?

“That's it. You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!”